Chapter 2 :Betrayal

I didn't know when I stopped breathing.

The air simply vanished from my lungs, leaving a hollow, aching vacuum in my chest. The small glass vial of prenatal vitamins Healer Maureen had just given me slipped from my suddenly numb fingers. It hit the stone floor with a heavy, sickening thud—a sound that echoed like a gunshot in the sterile, suffocating quiet of the hallway.

"Ethan."

I didn't mean to say it. It wasn't a demand, nor an accusation. It was a breathless, shattered plea that just slipped past my trembling lips on its own accord.

The soft murmurs inside the clinic room ceased instantly. The silence that followed was heavy, thick and pressing down on my shoulders like a physical weight. Slowly, agonizingly, Ethan turned his head toward the half-open door.

The look on his face when his eyes locked onto mine told me everything I needed to know. It wasn't confusion. It wasn't innocence. It was raw, unmistakable guilt. It painted his sharp features, widening his eyes and draining the color from his normally flushed cheeks. It was the terrified look of a man who knew he had just been caught destroying someone else's world.

"Chloe," he breathed out. His voice was barely a whisper, yet it carried across the short distance between us like a physical blow to my ribs.

I couldn't look at Vanessa. My gaze was anchored, completely paralyzed, on Ethan's hand.

It was still resting on her stomach. Even in his shock, even after seeing me standing there broken in the doorway, he hadn't removed it. That large, warm hand that had stroked my hair in the dark, that had traced the line of my jaw and promised me I was the only one who mattered—it was currently shielding the child he had created with my worst tormentor.

My legs gave out. I stumbled back slightly, my shoulder colliding hard with the wooden door frame. I used it to steady myself, my knees trembling so violently I thought they might shatter beneath me. The exhaustion and nausea of my own secret pregnancy suddenly surged, threatening to pull me under a wave of absolute dizziness.

"You..." My voice came out painfully small, sounding like a frightened child's rather than a woman's. "You got her pregnant?"

Ethan stood up immediately, the wooden stool scraping harshly against the floor. "Chloe, I can explain. Please, just listen to me—"

"How long?"

He stopped. His mouth opened, then closed, no sound coming out. He looked helpless, but his silence was the loudest confession of all. The silence stretched between us, agonizing and cruel, and I felt each passing second pierce through my heart like a jagged silver blade.

Nine weeks, the healer had said.

Nine weeks. He had been sleeping with her while whispering sweet promises into my ear. He had been creating a life with Vanessa three weeks before I had even conceived. The betrayal was so deep, so absolute, that my mind could barely comprehend the scale of the lie I had been living in.

Hot tears burned furiously at the back of my eyes, a stinging pressure that demanded release. I refused to let them fall. Not here. Not in front of Vanessa. I finally dragged my gaze away from Ethan to look at her. She was watching me, perched comfortably on the examination bed, a knowing smirk playing on her glossy lips. Her eyebrow was raised in a look of sheer, victorious condescension, looking at me as if I were nothing more than a piece of trash that had blown in from the courtyard.

"Chloe, I can explain," Ethan tried again, taking a step forward and reaching his hand out for mine.

"Don't." The word came out harder and sharper than I thought I was capable of. I shrank back, pressing myself against the wall as if his touch would burn my skin. "Don't come toward me right now."

"Ethan?" Vanessa called out softly. Her tone was sickeningly sweet, laced with a feigned innocence that made my stomach churn violently. "What is going on?"

Ethan froze. He glanced back at Vanessa, then back at me. A war waged in his eyes, but it only lasted a second before the Alpha heir won out over the boy who had claimed to love me.

"Nothing important," he managed to say, his voice tightening.

Nothing important.

The words echoed in my skull. I was nothing important. The secret moments, the kisses, the whispered dreams of a future together—it was all just a game to him.

Before I could fully process the devastating weight of those two words, he crossed the room in three long strides. He grabbed my wrist—his grip tight, commanding, and completely stripped of all the gentleness he used to reserve for me. He pulled me out into the hallway, dragging me a few feet away from the clinic door so Vanessa couldn't hear.

He released me abruptly and ran his hands roughly through his dark hair, looking incredibly frustrated. His jaw was clenched tight, as if I had somehow inconvenienced him by discovering his lies.

"Look," he started, his voice dropping low, taking on the cold, authoritative cadence of a future Alpha. The mask was fully in place now. "You are an omega."

My heart tightened violently. The word was a slap to the face, a brutal reminder of my place in this pack.

"You don't have a wolf, Chloe," he continued, his tone pragmatic and devoid of emotion. "You are weak. And I will be the Alpha soon. My father is already preparing to step down. I can't afford weakness by my side."

I stared at him, my vision blurring as the tears finally spilled over, trailing hot paths down my cheeks. The man standing before me wasn't the boy who had kissed me under the willow tree. He was a complete stranger.

"I want someone stronger as my Luna," he said, his words calculated to inflict maximum damage, to sever whatever foolish hope I still clung to. "Someone the pack is going to respect without question. Someone who can give me strong, capable heirs. Vanessa is the Gamma's daughter. She has power. She has status."

"But we are fated mates," I sobbed, my voice cracking under the weight of a broken soul. "The Moon Goddess chose us. You said that mattered."

Ethan looked down at me, his eyes hardening into something resembling stone. There was no love left in his gaze, only a ruthless, blinding ambition.

"Yes, we are mates," he nodded, his jaw ticking. "But a mate bond doesn't win wars, Chloe. It doesn't command respect. I need a stronger female beside me. I need a Queen, not a maid."